The Marque of Jasmine
by Elfgirl2005
Summary: Set in Jacqueline Carey's world of Terre d'Ange, and loosely based on the Kushiel series, this story follows a young girl through tragedy and loss. Will she still find comfort in Elua's message of Love as thou wilt?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The first paragraph in this story is not mine; it is Jacqueline Carey's from "Kushiel's Dart". Most of the settings are not mine either, I'm just borrowing them for now. ;) The characters themselves, however, are of my own imagining, even though I used names from Jacqueline Carey's novels.

Chapter 1

_It is hard for me to resent my parents, although I envy them their naiveté. No one even told them, when I was born that they gifted me with an ill-luck name. Phedre, they called me, neither one knowing that it is a Hellene name, and cursed. _

I suppose, then, that it was at the very moment of my birth that my path was decided. And what a twisted path it has been. Mathematicians argue that superstitions are held up only by fools, that the real world lies in statistics and probability. But I know different. There is a reason why superstitions linger so long. Why did they not listen to the Dowayne? Why set themselves upon such a disastrous course?

My childhood was spent in Montreve, a rustic green community at the sprawling base of the mountains. Lilliane, my mother, bore the marque of Jasmine House and she met their canon of sensuality with no mistaking. I saw how the men's eyes followed her lean brown body as she walked through the green meadows. And how my father, ever possessive, watched over her with his keen blue eyes and a sharp silver blade. This was common for a member of the House of Jasmine. Everyone from the King of Terre D'Ange himself to the lowliest of the peasant stock, knew that of all the Thirteen Houses, Jasmine's adepts were the most exotic. There were also several popular jests about how exotic they could be in the bedchamber.

And my mother, Lilliane nó Jasmine, had fostered there all of her life, the proof etched inch by torturous inch into her delicate back by the smart tappings of the marquist's needle. The red rose at the finial, signature of Jasmine House, was barely visible above the neckline of her gown when she wore her dark, curling hair up. But it blazed like a beacon, and some men were drawn so strongly that even my father failed to kept hem away.

It happened one day in the autumn while my father was busy preparing our stores for the fast approaching winter. He worked hard, my father, always trying to provide for his exotic treasure. There was no mistaking that he loved her greatly. And she loved him in return. She went against the sanction of her House to wed him. He was blonde haired, blue eyed, with creamy light skin; almost fitting of the canon of Cereus House, but his skin was slightly too tanned. They preferred their adepts to be pale as moonlight. Obviously the Dowayne of Jasmine House could not allow their union.

"_I can not permit this Lillian. There is no way of knowing what such a union will produce. We cannot guarantee a place for your children in Jasmine, nor in Eglantine or any of the Houses at all for that matter. Do you not want security for your family? Marry a man of Jasmine, where the Bhodistani blood runs hot, then there will be no mistaking where your children belong."_

But my mother knew what she felt in her heart, and she eloped with him. Her place was lost in Jasmine House, as the Dowayne had warned. And, the union of a dark, lustrous woman and a light, common man produced me… a child with an ill-luck name. Worse than the Dowayne feared.

But even still, Lilliane bore the marque of Jasmine on her skin as she sat reading in the garden on that autumn day while my father worked so hard. It was something she often did as the days turned cooler. She loved sitting among what was left of the summer flowers. I guess she wanted to enjoy them before winter came in full force. But on this day, winter came early. Three men saw her from the fields. Saw her back facing them and knew without seeing it that her marque blazed beneath the delicate fabric of her gown. I was with my tutor that day. My mother made sure I still received a proper education, in case I too, would choose to enter the service of Naamah. By the time I returned home, the house was burning.


	2. Chapter 2

Oh, how quickly a child's delusion is broken! I remember exactly how that moment felt, how the dread made a knot in my stomach as the orange and red flames danced with glee. Each step felt like a great labor as I ran toward the house. The thickening cloud of smoke stung my eyes as I made my way through the front gate. Inside the beautifully tiled entryway, the frescoes of Elua and his companions were alight with flame, blazing like torches. The roof was beginning to fall in. The beautiful honey-stained oak beams that had been so carefully placed were scorched now. As I was about to run into the dining room, a beam crashed down in front of me, nearly smashing me. My way blocked, I ran out the side door to my mother's garden path. I stood just outside the house, my back hunched over gasping for air and retching. As I stared at the ground at the proud dahlia's my mother had planted, they began to wilt, bowing their blood-red petals to the ground. I found my parents in the garden.

My mother, horribly beaten, lying face down on her crushed white alyssums, dried blood stiffening her tangled curls.

My father, with a knife wound to the stomach, crumpled into a heap next to the two men he took down with him; one with his breeches still undone.

A cry of outrage and shock ripped through me, as the crackling fire behind me mocked my grief. Those who are not D'Angeline do not understand the blasphemy of rape. "Love as thou Wilt" Elua told us, and to rape is to violate that most central holy precept. My mother had given herself freely in her time in service to Naamah, it was not just that she should endure this at the last.

I ran to my father, whose bright gleaming hair stood out amid a sea of smoke, ash, and blood. I rolled him onto his back and gasped at the sight of his bloodied body. His entire front was awash with red. I ripped the soaked linen fabric of his shirt, exposing his torso to the cool air, and placed my hands over his still oozing wound.

"Elua, make it stop." I whispered, as my tears threatened to obscure my vision. I blinked them away, and they ran instead down my amber cheeks. I focused on applying pressure to his wound, but I had no training in the healing arts, and my small hands were soon covered in my father's blood.

He had tried so hard to make my mother happy. I remembered all the moments they had shared in this very garden. When I was a small child and my mother would bring me out to the garden to play as she read, he would sneak up behind her and grab her sides. She would scream and bolt out of her chair, chase him and swat him with the book she held. And then they would laugh together, and I would giggle too. Then their embrace would change, deepen before my eyes, and she would lead him away into the house. He followed behind her with a dazed look in his eyes that could only be described as love.

Then, perhaps in reaction to my whispered prayer, his bright blue eyes flickered open, slowly as though his lids were weighted with heavy stones. His milk-white face looked pale and sunken.

"Lilliane" he said in a choked whisper, as the blood began to stream from the side of his mouth.

There was nothing I could do; he had been bleeding for too long and lost too much blood. Whoever had done this had left him to suffer and die with agonizing slowness. I felt a sense of rightness looking at the corpses of the two men. They deserved every second of their pain. At this thought, my father stiffened and died, the light from his blue eyes fading while I sobbed on his ruined body. And it was suddenly not enough that the men had died, not nearly enough to right the wrongs that had been done.

And then, I got a sharp sensation of pain on the back of my head and the hellish scene before my eyes turned to black.

When I woke, my head ached terribly. I was in a dark room and I could not see anything. Was it night outside? I didn't know. I stood shakily and heard the rustle of straw beneath my feet. I walked cautiously with my arms outstretched trying to find a wall or doorway. My hands met rough wooden walls, and I cried out as splinters punctured my blood-stained hands. I found one door with a metal handle. I shook with all of my strength and heard the clanging rattle of chains on the other side. That night, or day, was the hardest I had ever known until then. I cried and cried until I was sick with nausea. I vomited until there was nothing left and I gasped at the air like it was poison. There were cuts on my scalp. I felt them when I laid down on top of the rough straw hours and hours later, praying to disappear.

Where was I? Who had taken me? These thoughts drove me mad with fear and foreboding. I knew what had happened to my mother, and anyone capable of rape, especially in Terre D'Ange was a godless madman. The men that my father had killed were rough-featured foreigners, and I had no doubt that they cared nothing about Elua's message.

_Creak._

Piercing light stabbed my eyes as I lay still atop the straw. Repulsed, I rolled over, covered my face and cried. The door closed. Heavy, heavy footsteps on the crunching straw.

_Thud._

"Eat."

A deep voice. I cried harder. _Creak. Slam._ I was alone again. I would not eat from his hands. The bowl flew across the room and my arm shook with the effort of the throw. Carrots and snap beans littered the straw-covered ground. Vegetables. He had brought me vegetables. Why pretend? Why not just feed me the food out of the pig sty, for was there any doubt that I was a prisoner? It made me sick, in body and soul.

He came again that night. The door creaked on its rusty metal hinges as it opened, letting streams of ethereal light pour into my prison. And as he stood in the doorway the moonlight behind him illuminated his form like a god. This, no doubt, he would have wanted. I sat motionless on the straw, blinking against the sudden light, waiting.

"You did not eat" he said, in accented D'Angeline, looking at the barely discernible shapes of beans and summer carrots amid the straw.

I said nothing; only stared past him at the moonlight on the green hillside. It was a chill night meant for warm hearth-fires in tiled fireplaces, scented with sprigs of lavender and jasmine. For the comforts of home and family. And then my mother's small frame flashed in my mind, her lean brown limbs patterned with bruises and contorted in a pose of agony on the hard cruel ground. Her sable curls, matted and bloody.

"Pick them up. I will not have this barn a mess."

My father's dying word echoed in my head. _"Lilliane."_

I stood, smoothed my ripped, blood-stained lilac dress and spit at his boot-clad feet.

The change in him was terrifying.

"You will do as I command you to do D'Angeline!" he said, as he grabbed my upper arm, squeezing so tightly that I felt my heart jump in my chest in fear. I looked into his eyes, dark shadows beneath bushy eyebrows, and saw the madness there. "I burned your weak Elua" he said. "I am your God now." He shoved me violently onto the straw and watched me as I picked up every last morsel of food.

"Get used to kneeling, girl, for you will be doing much of it in the future." The smile in his voice sent shivers down my spine.


End file.
